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1024x768, A5 guts from the iPad 2, and 130 dollars more than the Nexus 7 to boot...I'm underwhelmed. They aren't even selling the 3 at the price of the 2 like they did with the 2 for the 3 either, it's just the 2 or the 4 now. No quad core in the Retina Macbook pro, the iMac dropped the optical drive and tapered the edges a bit. Meh to all of this. Reply

275,000 applications sounds important right? But I can think of maybe 10-20 programs I actually use. Do I think those will be covered in the first 4000, probably, if not I'm quite sure with MS's developers, developers, developers base they will be soon. I think the lack of brand name envy for MS is going to be the bigger issue given Surface pricing. Here is to hoping I am wrong and that people are more rational than I give them credit for.Reply

Theres already 6000+ apps in the Windows Store right now. Likely over 8000 on release day. Apps are not a problem anyway, this is Windows not some unknown OS. The app count will grow very fast. And any app made for the Windows Store automatically work on both Win 8 and RT as all apps run on the new Windows RunTime. Win 8 apps are also Win RT apps.

I agree with the others, iPads are not appealing against RT tablets, let alone a full Win 8 tablet.Reply

People said WP7 would grow it's app collection very fast as well and look at it now: Still a 7x multiple behind Android/iOS and still missing headline apps like Instagram and Pandora (I'm aware Pandora was announced for a *future* release)

Also, do we really have to go over the flaws in the "but I only need about 20-40 apps" argument again? Ok, ONE MORE TIME:You only use that many apps but your set is different than everyone else's set. Now do you see why selection matters? It should be pretty easy to understand considering this is the main reason people have bought Windows computers in the last 2 decades. No one says "oh, I only need 20 apps so I'll just use Linux" or whatever.Reply

Ok, so how about this. For the extra $80 you pay for an iPad Mini vs a nexus 7 you get.

1) physically larger touch panel.2) physically smaller and lighter device.3) A usable camera for stills and video.4) More than a quarter of a million apps designed for the larger screen.5) Faster Graphics performance.6) Higher quality build.7) The number 1 rated company in customer service for these devices.

8. And the iPad Mini Touch Screen response will be much better then the Nexus 7.

Yes it is slightly more expensive then what i would expect. $299, the rumour price of $249 is just silly. But i also didn't expect Facetime HD Camera, 5M iSight Camera, and 5Ghz Wifi as well as Bluetooth 4.0. Reply

The 4th generation is simply a step up in the CPU and the connector. The rest of the components are largely unchanged. The iPad 2 exists because Apple can leverage the old panel, old form and the guts and profit from it. iPad mini another example of that. Making money on existing manufacturing investment.

But with the SoC and motherboard paid for by two revisions of iPod2, Apple really could've gone in with guns blazing on the iPad mini. $329 doesn't sound like guns blazing, but they'll still probably sell out regardless.

With the iPod Touch coming in at $299, there was no way this was going to undercut it, but they really should've tried.Reply

The problem with the Nexus 7 comparison is that the $199 Nexus has half the storage. To get the same storage as the minimum-price iPad mini, you have to get the $249 Nexus 7, which is "only" $80 cheaper.

Neither is my cup of tea, but there certainly is a market for it, at the current price. I have to imagine that they didn't go with $299 solely to put SOME pressure on demand so they could keep up the supply.Reply

What are these killer tablet apps? I'm genuinely curious, not trying to flame bait here... Maybe it's just my usage model but I spend the vast majority of the time on my tablet within the browser or email clients... Android's stock email client is pretty mediocre, tho the Gmail one is superb, Chrome's pretty hard to beat tho (NFC, remote session access for moving between desktop/phone/tablet, etc).Reply

I'm not saying more apps are not needed, it's just that those are the things that I'm interested in doing on a tablet. If I plan to work with pictures I have a proper desktop, If I plan to work with office I have my laptop as an option, If I need to do SOMETHING SERIOUS the computer is always my first choice because even if a tablet *may* be able to do it using a computer is just so much faster. Just try to copy and paste a text, how much longer would it take on a tablet - three times longer? Five times longer? Maybe ten times longer even if you need to switch application?Reply

Larger display, and still smaller and lighter. Good quality rear facing camera and superior graphics performance at only a $80 premium. Combine these things with the applications, customer support, build quality, and over all ecosystem and I think this is a serious competitor.Reply

The key thing is it still offers the full tablet experience at 80% size. Every iPad app you load on it shows the same detailed view that you see with the heavy 10" tablets. Something like the Nexus 7 ships with the DPI set higher than a 10" tablet so you get a view that is half phone, half tablet. Lowering the DPI works well, the only downsides are that many people don't know how to do it and it makes phone apps look even sillier.

Android apps are getting there but many companies have been slow with releasing anything more than a phone app. Phone apps aren't too bad on a Nexus 7 but they are very different than a native iPad app. There is a section at 55:30 in the keynote where the Nexus 7 and iPad are compared. I know they handpicked apps but over the last 2.5 years every iOS app has optimized for tablets while android is still inconsistent, even from big brands.

There is also the slightly large diagonal and fatter aspect ratio that gives you 33% more surface area and 66% more application real estate in landscape mode where the onscreen android controls sap display high. The difference that a smaller display and onscreen controls makes looks very noticeable when trying to use full sized web pages or detailed applications.Reply

An iPad Mini with 64 GB is quite expensive when compared to an Android with 8/16 GB and a 64 GB SDXC-card (I think this is a very valid comparison since many wish for more than 16 GB). So it's not an iPad for those on a strict budget but for those wishing for a more portable tablet. And for that I think it works well. It's not like many people have complained about the G2 iPad feeling slow.

Seems like the the chassis of the iMac is too small to dissapate the heat of an IB quad + Kepler + mech HDD. I'm betting big thermal problems for this gen iMac until Haswell + integrated GT3 graphics + SSD comes around.

Was hoping Mac Mini would have a 128GB SSD, perhaps in conjunction with the 500GB HDD. If Apple is serious about promoting a great "user experience", they've got to beat PC's in ridding their machines of mechanical HDD's, at least for the OS/Apps, if not altogether.Reply

Looking at the pictures on their website, there is now a hole on the imac back behind the stand, as well as holes along the bottom, I think they can cool it just fine especially with Kepler and IVB. Reply

What are you talking about? You CAN buy the mac mini with- an HD only- an SSD only- a fusion config (which I'm guessing is 128GB SSD + a 900 GB HD)

Go to the Apple store, buy the 1TB version, and then custom configure to swap the drive to what you want.

I can understand them retaining the HD only version. For many of the most common uses of a mac mini (like HTPC) an SSD is not worth the cost --- the usage model utilizes large disks, but has no need for rapid random access.Reply

This is poorly done even by Apple's standard. I would be more willing to give it a shot with an A6, but all the other specs point to a substandard product. This is almost like the Samsung 7.7 tab from a year ago... I am so glad I can now buy an iPod XL..Reply

I'm a bit surprised they kept the iPad 2 rather than position this as the "cheaper" iPad. The specs are fine for the intended audience. Again, with Apple, it's all about thinness, so by keeping the processor a bit slower they were able to keep the battery life up. The 3rd gen had an A5X, so I wasn't expecting an A6 for the Mini since it doesn't need the power to run the screen. I was actually surprised they updated the larger iPad with the A6X as quickly as they did.

My guess is that this is a thing of beauty in person. Remember, the target audience doesn't care about the processor or RAM.Reply

So what exactly are you claiming? That none of these products will sell?Give a number --- Tim told us 100 million iPads sold over the last 2.5 years.

So: I'll bet you a thousand dollars that at least 30 million iPad minis will sell over the next year --- which is VASTLY more than all the Nexus 7s, Tab/Note 7.7's and Surfaces put together.What do you claim will happen, with your superior knowledge of what the dead think and the future?Reply

Apple were one of first to hoffer high density displays, they even risked it with their Macs.The competiton often used displays with higher pixel count than the iPad 2 but not meaningful more. However, now most new tablets offer a density which makes it hard to see individual pixels. Even the Nexus 7 has a HD resultion on a 7 inch display.Yet, Apples latest iPad mini only has XGA resolution on a 8 inch display. So they use a several years old display technology, combine it with a two generations old SoC, the same the iPad 2 uses, and sell it for a premium price. Just take a look at a 32GB LTE iPad mini: $560 for two generations old hardware.

Sure, specs aren't everything, but those specs are really really bad.To read text the display isn't up-to date, text is jagged compared to any other tablet, to watch movies the display has the wrong aspect ratio and, again, too low resolution. To play games the SoC may be capable for current versions, but with the much improved iPad 4 SoC, soon to get released games won't run on it any longer.

It's also odd that Apple hasn't lowered the price of the iPad 3, or do they even sell it any longer. It's probably cheaper to buy a used iPad 3 than a new iPad 2, and you get a much better device.Reply

so you get the display you know from the iPhone 3GS, if you enjoyed its resolution, fine, but the difference between the PPI of the Nexus 7 and iPad Mini is noticably.The Nexus 7 can show 720p without rescaling, the iPad Mini has to heavily downscale them to fit it to the 1024 width. If you do the math you'll see the Nexus 7 shows 100% of 720p quality, the iPad Mini only 64%, that is far off again!The iPad Mini has a larger display with lower resolution than the Nexus 7 and costs much more! Reply

Just wait until the end of the month. If the rumored Nexus 10 tablet is announced with 2560x1600 in a 10" screen with all the goodies like quad core CPU etc. It could really make Apple's iPad lineup look beyond silly depending on the pricepoint. It's still rumor but I can totally see it happening.Reply

But, honestly most of the existing Android apps are already bad enough on the 7" Nexus. Using them on a 10" 2560x1600 screen will be pathetic.

I mean, I more or less can get over that on the Nexus 7 but how on earth do people cope with silly smartphone apps with some tiny buttons in the top-left corner and everything else behind the menu button on a 10" hi-res display?

I wouldn't be surprised if the 4000 WinRT apps were more than the existing tablet apps for Android. I don't see a bright future for Android on tablets at all.Reply

270,000 so-called tablet apps on iTunes. Wooptiedoo, it will not take GooglePlay log to catch up and overtake that number. They have already caught up to Apple in total apps and will soon over take them there. Really how many apps does any one person use 10-20 tops.

The difference to the Nexus7 is more than $80 much more. Google is doubling the storage of the entry Nexus to 16GB and retaining the $199 price. That alone makes it a $180 price difference. Add to that Apples proprietary connectors Adapters are $49 each, OUCH! Nexus7 uses the ubiquitous mini USB. Apps in GooglePlay are typically cheaper than on iTunes, and there are a much greater number of free apps boot. I'm sure if someone was ambitious enough to do a full cost-based anaysis you would wind up spending $200-$300 more over the life of your tablet to by the Apple offering.

The killer me, besides the high price, is that mini-iPad's lack of a GPS.

If you read the posts of people who actually own a Nexus7 it's pretty clear who the winner is. I think Apple really missed the boat here. I predict deep discounts before Christmas on the mini-iPad to clear dead stock.Reply

I cannot help thinking that the iPad Mini is the first device that truly shows that Apple is not the same without Steve Jobs at the helm. Not that I liked his personality, but he at least brought unity, consistency and clear direction for the company.

The iPad Mini feels both like a halfhearted and desperate effort, trying to catch up with the competition. As said below, the low screen resolution (how come a non-Retina display is so amazing all of a sudden?), and old SoC are far from innovative and the long running comparison to Nexus 7 just shows how lost Apple has become without Jobs (if I were Larry Page, I would call up Tim Cook and thank him for a 5 minute free commercial). Also, from a technical standpoint, the Nexus 7 actually looks superior, both in terms of SoC and screen resolution - at a much lower price.

The extremely early upgrade of the iPad 4 (or whatever it is called) also feels merely like a counter-move towards the competition, not something that can be viewed as innovative. Granted, twice the graphics performance vs. A5X sounds quite nice, but why already now if Apple weren't feeling threatened and worried, especially by MS Surface and rumored Google/Samsung 10-inch Retina beating tablet? If nothing else, a good way of alienating existing "New iPad" customers.Reply

No one said 1024x768 was AMAZING. At best most are saying it'll do fine. You're getting lost on the fact that this is supposed to be a low end item by comparison. To cry over no retina is like crying that the cheaper 13" mac pro doesn't have retina. Or the Mac Book Air. This is a stupid argument so long as there are still product lines that DON'T have retina. Get over it. Reply

Actually no...see Apple claims it does everything better. Every keynote makes it sound like they have some magic wand to make their product better and stand out. This thing falls flat on its face a million times over compared to what else is out there. For the record is is much easier to hold and much better for movies to have a rectangular product not a square one. This is why the Nexus 7 is superior from the beginning. Before the CPU, before the resolution, and before the customizable OS. It has a 16:10 aspect ratio which is a hell of a lot better for everything than 4:3. Especially if you are trying to watch HD movies, 1024x768 isn't even 720p so playing back an HD video will not be as crisp at all.Reply

Everything? Not for webpages, which you can see Apple is still prioritizing, rightfully so, seeing as that's what we mostly do on them. It's that same old argument. Watch movies on your TV, not on a 7" device. =P

>1024x768 isn't even 720p so playing back an HD video will not be as crisp at all.

Don't be silly, few if anyone would be able to tell the differens on a 720p clip being played back on a WXGA vs a XGA panel. Pixel density is one of the least important things to define a great picture.Reply

If my only argument would have been the low resolution (and, as cmdrdredd points out below, the outdated aspect ratio), then possibly I would have been overdramatic. However, if you read my post again, you should be able to conclude that's not the case.

Even though most people are still underwhelmed (again, a fitting description) as far as specs go, the most troublesome fact for Apple in all this is that they are now reacting instead of acting, which for a company who basically claims innovation monopoly is not a good sign.Reply

I wouldn’t say the iPad 4 is a countermove because it is purely a performance increase. Copying other tablets would be a countermove, but they have to make it faster sometime between today and 6 months from now, why wait? The way the timing worked out they already decided to release their new CPU on the iPhone instead of the iPad. It wouldn’t make much sense so be selling iPads half as fast as the iPhone for 6 months. Like you said, the GPU upgrade is “nice” but doesn’t really help make the UI any better unless we start seeing PS3 level graphics in games.

Moving back to the old res on the Mini is definitely not amazing but I think their presentation is largely about the user experience. iPad apps are designed around this res and the panel is too small to fit a 3MP screen this year. Higher resolution would have been nice but it would mean stretched apps and a poor user experience for a 40% increase in PPI. I guess they could have avoided making this product entirely but I think many people will like having something smaller.

The slow CPU and small RAM sucks but I don’t see customers caring. It’s about the UI and if people like using this better even with 512MB ram then it looks like a good product. The software is designed to perform with these limitations so I’m sure it isn’t too painful. I don’t think you can say the Nexus 7 is superior for the average consumer based on specs alone, more important is what you can see on the screen and how seamlessly it can be interacted with. There are $150 tablets on ebay with “superior” specs but I don’t think iPad users care. The Nexus 7 is definitely crushes crapgadget tablets but not with superior specifications.

The side by side comparison of apps seemed to me to be in bad taste with regards to Google because Apple already dominates sales but if anything I think it will help kick app developers in the right direction. I think the comparison of web page viewing in landscape was necessary as I had no idea that the Nexus 7’s small screen + wide aspect + on screen controls would mean only seeing 60% of the content. With a Nexus 7 already on the screen for area comparison, I guess I can’t fault them for taking the shots they did.

Pricing is one area where I think they got it right. Apple’s products are premium products and they already have great sales. Trying to compete on price isn’t something Jobs did and this is the same Apple.Reply

I'm not knocking the mini tho, I think the intended market will eat it up. In a sense it's a lot like the first IPad... Not really the best tablet they could produce, but it was the best possible time to put one out.

The price point and size on the mini are things people really wanted out of Apple, and they're giving it to them without sacrificing perennially high profit margins for a better SoC or display. Next year's model will probably be a big jump on both accounts.

Me I'm anxious for a Nexus 7 refresh... I'll probably be giving one away as a Christmas gift this year but I'm holding out for the next rev (and possibly Win RT hardware) before upgrading my year and a half old Transformer, which I bought for $300 mind you... 10" 1280x800 :p (crazy Staples $100 off tablets special)Reply

Once you accept the fact that the competition is sorely lacking in the software department, and that the most important factor in buying a tablet computer is the software it's capable of running, it makes perfect sense. $239 for a tablet with hundreds of thousands of apps or $200-$250 for one that has a few thousand at best.

Most of you guys here aren't seeing the proverbial forest for the trees and once again are getting bogged down by specs.

News Flash: Apple has to deliver a product with a premium experience at a price people can live with. Yes, Google and Amazon came out with lower priced products, but neither of those devices feel as good in your hand, and both products are being sold AT COST. Amazon is hoping you'll buy content from them over two years and Google us happy to data-mine the heck out of your life in exchange for ad dollars. Apple just wants your money upfront...that's their business model. It's not a surprise. Most companies have a similar model. Deal with it.

Second, getting bogged down in the ppi specs forgets that a 1024x768 screen means developers have to do NOTHING in order to play on this device. Anything made for the iPad family will run. A retina display in a device like this will jack the price up to something no one will want, and the build yields would probably suck anyway, meaning you couldn't get one. Those of you looking forward to 1080p on your phablet Android phones next year forget that you're still paying for your device on contract for two years...not an option in the tablet market.

Yes, the A6 would have been nice, but no one else is stuffing their devices with the latest quad-core hotness and trying to sell it for $200. None of you guys seem to get basic economics. And Apple is still giving you two cameras, LTE options, etc.

One thing is certain, none of Apple's competitors are happy that they finally entered the market in this space. All they have to hang their hat on is that Apple went for $329 as MSRP which means they may still have a shot on the low end. And the 4th gen iPad pretty much nullifies any reason to get the Surface Pro, unless you want a thicker tablet with vent holes and lousy battery life just to get that extra performance. The business customers are already well into their first generation of owning an iPad and this will just keep them coming back for more. All the enterprise software firms are developing for iPad first, Android second. Surface isn't even being discussed right now.

It's not that Win7 apps won't work on a Surface Pro. We all expect them to. But most of those apps weren't designed for a tablet. And the few ones that are were designed for Tablet PC, which is now obsolete. I have a friend who's a physician who uses Tablet PC in his office and his problem is that those pen-based PCs are getting harder to find now.

Surface has to survive by making a suitable value proposition and that's going to be to Enterprise customers, most of which are already using iPads. And yes, developers have to get on board but the big enterprise software companies have been developing for iOS for a while now. So have their customers. This isn't a slam dunk anymore for Microsoft.Reply

All that explains why it makes sense for Apple to do exactly what they did with the mini, and I agree, but it doesn't necessarily make it the best small tablet on the market... Not by a long shot IMO. It largely depends on usage case and what ecosystem you're already married with, I'm betting Apple's banking largely on the latter tho.

Had they waited another year to release a small tablet at a sub $350 price point they might've been too late, so they built the best they could without sacrificing their healthy profit margin or compatibility, good for them, probably fine for a lot of people too. Great timing too, I imagine it's gonna fly off the shelves on Christmas.Reply

So as the owner of a full iPad 2, and a Nexus 7, I really don't see much point in the iPad Mini for me, which is basically what I expected. I'm not going to sell my capable Nexus 7 just to up-sell myself to the more expensive iPad Mini, especially when I already have a full iPad to run iOS tablet apps.

I guess I have the same thought as many other people: Who is Apple actually competing against with this? It would seem to be itself, as 329 at the low end is not going to entice Nexus and Fire buyers, it's just not. Especially now that the Nexus 7 is getting a doubling in storage capacity, with the 16GB moving down a price point and the 32GB version taking it's $249 perch.

Now, if I didn't own a tablet of any kind, and wanted a 7" tablet...I would seriously consider the mini. Again, as the owner of an iOS and an Android tablet, both of which I love to pieces, the iOS ecosystem is just flat better for the average user right now. That's not to disparage Android as a platform, or Android tablets, it's just sort of the reality of the head start Apple had in that space. I just go back to my fear that Apple is really only competing against themselves with this device, because it's just not priced aggressively enough to compete in the space that the Nexus 7 and Fire are competing in.Reply

I think many of the techies here really don't get how people think in the outside world!

Why is Apple charging $329 for this? Simply because they can! It's the same reason that a Lexus LS costs $65K, while a Hyundai Equus (with comparable, or better specs) costs $30K. Because people are willing to pay for a premium brand! Sure, if you're in auto manufacturing, you'd say "Hey, the Lexus is just an overpriced better packaged Camry", but do you think 99.99% of the world thinks this way?

Sine 1997 when Jobs returned to Apple, they've carefully built a premium brand, and even more so since the iPod. And people want to have a premium brand! Last summer, when the iPad2 was the flagship device, I wanted to give one to my wife for her birthday. But I just could not get one! It took me 3 goddamn weeks to get my hand on one!

Google, Amazon and the others just haven't been around that long (hardware wise) for it to matter that the Nexus 7 has better specs in some respects! MS tried the same approach with Zune - we'll give people better specs at the same price. The marketplace said "Whatever!"Reply